Episode Transcript
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1:59
much more than that. If you or
2:02
someone you know is a survivor of sexual
2:04
assault, you're not alone and will
2:06
share a list of resources at the end of the
2:08
episode. Please take care
2:10
while listening. Just
2:22
after lunch one Friday afternoon, Lori
2:25
Kanyak walked into a Columbia University
2:28
Medical Center on the Upper East Side
2:30
of Manhattan. She
2:32
was here for a postpartum exam. She
2:35
stepped into the elevator and went up to her obstetrician's
2:38
office. When it was her turn to be
2:40
seen, a nurse showed her to the exam room
2:42
and took her vitals. Lori changed
2:45
into a hospital gown and waited. Her
2:48
pregnancy had been considered high risk.
2:51
She was almost 40, she had previously
2:53
miscarried and her years as a
2:55
professional dancer had left her with back
2:58
injuries. She wanted the best
3:00
possible care. A friend
3:02
of mine had worked for
3:04
years at Columbia Hospital and she
3:07
and a lot of her other friends had been patients
3:09
of Dr. Robert Haddon and she said,
3:11
hey, why don't you check him out? He's very good. And
3:14
Columbia was one of the top medical
3:16
names in the country. I
3:18
felt lucky that I had that
3:21
hospital carrying me through this. And
3:27
now here she was six weeks after
3:29
delivering a beautiful baby girl. It
3:32
was supposed to be a routine checkup. While
3:34
Lori was lying on the exam table, scrolling
3:37
through her phone, enjoying a few hours out
3:39
of the house without a baby
3:40
to care for, Dr. Robert
3:42
Haddon
3:42
finally stepped into the room like
3:45
he always did, wearing his crisp white
3:47
coat with his glasses and prim
3:49
gray beard. She's a skinny
3:51
Santa Claus, a Cagranpah. He
3:54
jumped right in with his usual chit chat.
4:00
blah blah blah, wow you look good,
4:02
you lost a lot of weight.
4:03
Well
4:06
I'm a dancer, I'm at my fighting weight
4:08
again, like we don't mess around kind of thing.
4:11
A nurse was with him, he performed a breast exam
4:13
and a pelvic exam. You're looking
4:16
good, everything's good, nurse leaves. Dr.
4:18
Haddon started to follow the nurse out. It
4:21
stopped. Oh I forgot
4:24
your hemorrhoids. Oh
4:27
and you have stitches, I thought you just
4:29
saw them. They were in the examination
4:32
room, alone, and that's when I
4:34
knew this was not gonna go very
4:36
well. She froze.
4:40
In that moment she had a flashback to
4:42
the first time Dr. Haddon made her feel
4:45
uncomfortable. She
4:47
was at the end of her second trimester lying
4:49
on the exam table, unable to see
4:51
over her pregnant belly. I
4:54
had this cool sensation on
4:56
my area and I was like that
4:59
didn't feel like an examination.
5:01
Here I am 38 years old, I
5:04
know what it feels like. That
5:06
night she told her partner what happened. He
5:09
thought it was just the hormones and
5:11
she told herself to refocus on what
5:13
mattered most. I was
5:15
sort of like okay the goal here is
5:18
to deliver a healthy child. You
5:20
put yourself aside, you want to
5:22
know that the baby's still there, you want to see a heartbeat,
5:25
you want to know that the umbilical cord isn't wrapped
5:27
around their necks. Then another
5:29
moment flashed in front of her. I
5:32
was really pregnant, like
5:34
Walrus pregnant.
5:37
It was right before she was due, she
5:39
went in for a dilation check
5:42
and he said this might
5:44
hurt a little bit and you're going to bleed after. The
5:47
force of the dilation check lifted
5:49
Lori's body off the table to
5:52
the point where I was holding the sides
5:54
of the table with my hands. She
5:57
heard him moan.
6:00
She had actually gone into labor and
6:02
another physician gave her a dilation
6:04
check that she'd barely even felt. It
6:07
briefly dawned on her that what hadn't had
6:09
done might not have been normal. And
6:12
now, alone with him in the examination
6:15
room, Lori's suspicion turned
6:17
into sheer panic. It
6:20
was like in that moment, all the two
6:22
incidences prior to me delivering her were
6:25
culminating in that moment right there.
6:28
He told her to lay back down. I'm
6:30
naked in a room with a man. What
6:33
was going to happen if I caused a
6:35
scene?
6:36
I laid down. I had my phone in my hand
6:40
and he said, go ahead, put your feet in stirrups.
6:42
So I did. And he grabbed one of
6:44
those like paper blanket
6:47
things that they have and
6:49
he put it over my knees and he pulled it
6:51
hot. So if you can
6:53
imagine like your knees are up, it
6:55
formed a bridge like a wall. And
6:59
all of a sudden his head dipped down and
7:02
he licked my vagina. And
7:05
I jumped up and his face
7:07
turned beet red. Dr. Haddon began
7:09
talking as though nothing had happened. You
7:12
know those cartoons where you see the lips
7:14
moving but you'd hear slow motion. Lori
7:17
frantically texted her partner. I
7:19
said, Dr. Haddon just licked my vagina. Her
7:23
partner paid an off duty cab driver 50 bucks
7:25
to get him to the building on a 60th Street.
7:29
Meanwhile, Dr. Haddon was still talking
7:32
and he said to me, stop in my
7:34
office and get
7:36
birth control. I'm like, okay,
7:39
great.
7:41
He finally left the exam room. Lori
7:44
grabbed her clothes. I was somewhere
7:46
between shock, hyperventilation
7:49
and sort of like, I
7:51
gotta get out of here. In my head I just kept
7:53
saying I gotta get out of here. she
8:00
could. But behind her in the hallway,
8:02
she heard Dr. Haddon following her, calling
8:05
out, Lori, you forgot your prescription.
8:08
She panicked and faked a phone call
8:10
from the babysitter, insisting she
8:12
had to leave. And I get downstairs
8:16
and the dad was there.
8:19
911 operator 1520,
8:22
where's your emergency? I
8:24
see her delivered her OBGYN
8:27
and he basically did
8:30
something inappropriate to her.
8:34
Okay, did he? I just went up there
8:37
and took her from there and brought her home.
8:39
Did he harass her, sir, or what? No,
8:42
he basically touched
8:44
her orally. Okay.
8:50
How long ago did this happen?
8:51
It's been, you know, about
8:53
about half an hour to 40 minutes. Okay.
9:03
And I hope that
9:05
no little girl ever
9:08
has to feel that,
9:10
because that is being
9:14
trapped in
9:18
a prison that you
9:21
keep getting out, like you just
9:23
want to get out.
9:25
And that's the part that never goes
9:28
away.
9:41
The NYPD met Lori and her partner
9:43
at their apartment. And while she was giving
9:45
her statement, Dr. Haddon called
9:48
her. Yeah, hi, Lori. It's
9:50
Dr. Haddon calling. It's like 4.30 on Friday.
9:53
He started in his very
9:55
mild tone of voice. And
9:58
then he proceeded to get... more
10:00
and more agitated.
10:01
What the heck happened? What's
10:04
going on? I'm very
10:07
upset. I don't know what's going
10:09
on. So please, if... Please
10:11
call me back or... Alright.
10:14
The cops
10:14
glanced at one another. The
10:17
one detective said,
10:18
Fuck him, let's go get this
10:20
pig. I was like, yeah, okay. I've got people on
10:22
my team.
10:23
There's people going to bat with me. And
10:26
they did.
10:28
Until they didn't. Dr.
10:32
Robert Haddon was arrested
10:34
at his office. The police
10:36
report shows that at least two Columbia
10:39
University administrators were aware
10:41
that he'd been taken into custody, including
10:43
the department chair, Mary Dalton, and
10:46
administrator Jeanne De La Cary, who
10:49
also left a message for Lori that afternoon.
10:53
I had heard that you had an incident
10:55
that happened that you were unhappy about
10:58
today. That
11:00
was Friday, June 29, 2012. On
11:06
Tuesday, Dr. Robert Haddon
11:08
went back to work.
11:14
You can listen to Exposed, cover-up
11:17
at Columbia University, ad-free on Wondery+.
11:21
Get started with your free trial at Wondery.com.
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